then and now: a collection of Annalogia
by thir13enth
Summary: She knew him better than anyone else, and when the world took her away from him, he never forgave it. Drabbles. Mostly experimental. Annalogia.
1. x377

**So I realize that Anna Heartfilia isn't even included in the character tags yet. Lol, I'll fix the tagging for this later.**

 **Fairy Tail fandom, I love you and all, but when I think of more than 5 potential Annalogia drabbles in less than 10 minutes, it's a problem. Regardless, I've finally given in. These are all super experimental and super undeveloped.**

 **I haven't thought really deeply yet; I'm just word vomiting right now lololol.**

* * *

 **x377**

 _She's scared. He thinks it's him._

* * *

Her voice is so well-tucked under her breath that when he first hears her words, he wonders if it's all his imagination.

"I can feel it," she murmurs, her lips grazing over the slope of his neck. Her tongue lazily trails over his skin as she lifts her mouth upwards to his lips, where she settles.

"I can taste it," she breathes, warm exhale ghosting on his face. She kisses him sweet and gentle, in the same way that she has been for the past many months—as if she's stretching out every fraction of a second with all the magic she can.

"I can hear its heart beating inside you," she whispers, her hands soft and running over his war-callused chest. Her fingertips follow his collarbones and met at his sternum, stopping at the five-year-old scar tissue, right over where the lacrima lies under his muscle and bone.

"What?" he asks.

He doesn't want to stop this moment, these now rare times when they are alone and she is pressed close against his body, reunited with his renegade soul, but he pulls her hips off his lap.

She's been avoiding him for weeks. She still hasn't explained why she looks at him with sad eyes.

"What are you talking about?" he repeats.

"The dragon," she replies, hushed, as if she's afraid she'll awaken it from inside him.

He tries to catch her eyes but she's like water slipping through the cracks in his hand. He can't hold her no matter how tight he squeezes his fingers and she just leaves him with cold memories of her stuck on his skin.

"Are you scared of me?" he asks.

"No," she says. Her voice doesn't waver. She shakes her head.

He rephrases. "Are you scared of what's been placed inside of me?"

"No." This time her serene expression begins to crack. It starts with her furrowed eyebrows.

"Then what are you scared of?"

"I'm not scared of anything."

But when she doesn't answer any of his other questions and just kisses him goodbye in a way locks time, closes doors, ends lives, he knows she's lying.

* * *

 **thir13enth**


	2. a truth and a lie

**Nope, Anna Heartfilia is still not a character tag. :P**

* * *

 **a truth and a lie**

 _She always knew him better than anyone else, and when the world took her away from him, he never forgave it._

* * *

She always knew him better than he knew himself.

She knew he was human before he realized he was different from the rest of the animals.

She told him he was human, like her, and touched his hands—blistered from trying to peel and eat the bark off trees—with her soft delicate fingers. She stretched palm over his, passed him food that his stomach could digest, gave him water that didn't make him sick to the stomach.

She clothed him, brought him fire, fed him soup; she warmed him from inside out. She put her hand over his and pulled it against his chest and told him to close his eyes, feel the rhythm that pounded within him. Then she let him feel her heartbeat.

She told him to breathe and to feel alive with the etherious power that he possessed within him and assured him that she was no different. She vowed to take him back to society and have him rejoin his own species, make the people acknowledge him for who he was and not for what he wasn't.

She fulfilled the first half of the promise, but he never blamed her for being unable to control what other people thought of him. He never understood humans anyway.

...

She knew he was intelligent before he ever spoke a word to her.

She presented him with books, let his eyes follow her finger along the page as she sounded out stories and legends and fables that the forest creatures he spent his entire young adulthood living with could not tell him.

She wasn't surprised when the first word he said was her name. She smiled and clasped her hands happily together, telling him that talking was good and that his smooth bass voice sounded much better than his grunts that misused his untrained vocal chords.

She answered all his questions without fail, and he inhaled all the knowledge about the world that she would give him—because still, no one else in the world would dare talk to him.

 **…**

She knew he was capable of love before he realized that he had fallen for her.

She showed him that his emotions weren't something to be afraid of and that there was nothing scarier than not understanding the twists and turns of his mind. She taught him to accept his turmoil, his pain, his anger at the world for leaving him in a ditch in the forest when he could barely walk on his own two feet, and gave him warm embraces and passionate kisses.

She evoked facets of him he didn't know existed.

Feelings like fear—not for himself when being chased by a wolf, but for her when she was being harassed by strangers on the street for walking around with him.

Feelings like worry—not for himself when he saw imminent rain clouds on the horizon and had no shelter for the night, but for her when she polished those golden keys she kept on a chain, always before a fight.

Feelings like love—not for himself when he had learned to walk by himself, had predicted the right berries to eat, but for her when she was tangled in his arms and safe, sound, in bed right aside him.

 **…**

She always knew him better than he knew himself.

But she got one thing wrong.

"You'd die for me, wouldn't you?" she asked him four hundred years ago.

It was a given at the time so he didn't bother to answer her but in this year, in this time without her, it's different.

"No, I won't die for you," he now whispers to himself, running his fingers over his lips, remembering the ghost of her kisses so sweet.

"I'd kill."

* * *

 **In which I explore the possibility of Acnologia being "born" half-dragon and thrown out of society, and in which Anna saves him.**

 **Let me know what you think! Reviews and comments always welcome!**

 **thir13enth**


	3. again

**Personal update here but I thought I'd just announce to the world that I am fantastically** ecstatic **right now because this OST that I've been waiting for fucking ever for has finally been released. And I don't know about you but I eat music whole and it nourishes me better than the angst that courses through my blood.**

 **Anyway. Thank you all so much for your support of this set of drabbles! We shall see how far I continue.**

(Although I'll go long for y'all. ;) heehee)

 **Quick confession time though. Once upon a Tenrou Island arc, I briefly wanted to ship Zeref and Acnologia and was so close to writing that. But then Anna came along and suddenly that soared.** Is this cis-het privilege?

* * *

 **again  
** (hoy, con el dolor)

 _Sometimes he stops to take a breath and questions whether what he's doing is right.  
But then he looks up at the starry sky and remembers exactly why._

* * *

Fingers dripping with fresh blood, he sometimes stops to take a breath and questions whether what he's doing is right.

She looks down at him from the heavens, and in the starry skies, he can still see the frown clear on her beautiful face—one that four hundred years almost made him forget, like stardust in his fading centuries-old memories. She doesn't like what he's doing and he knows it.

He also knows that what he's done and what he's doing will not bring her back to him. But he lies to himself because this is his only reason to live—and a long time ago, he promised her that he wouldn't try to take his own life again and instead find a reason to live, no matter what it is, as long as he is living.

So he rises everyday with jaded eyes, staring directly at the sun before turning his back to the light and facing his growing shadow.

And it doesn't matter. He lost his humanity four hundred years back when he put his soul down to rest aside her cold unbreathing body, burying both with the possibility of a future of happiness and meaning.

There is nothing else for him to lose—not after losing her—so he rips through their sides with vengeance, be them human, dragon, immortal.

It's his favorite way to kill—ripping their beating hearts out of their chest with his bare hands, their last pained roars muffled with gurgles of blood. He shows them just how small their lives are in the palm of his hand before he crushes their hopes in their last second of consciousness.

If he does it enough times, he might be able to match his own heart break.

He comes close to it when he shreds through God Serena in one swift movement, and when he hears the sound of eight dragons wailing in agony, a sound all too similar to his own, he pauses and takes a breath in to question if what he is doing is right—

But he looks briefly at the deep blue ocean of the sky and reminds himself not to forget her.

—then he exhales and in the same breath, with blood-stained fingernails, he charges forward again.

* * *

 **With love, and only the best that my paltry soul can give you,**

 **thir13enth**


	4. cul-de-sac

**Anna H. has been added on our character list. :) My job here is done.**

 **I don't even know what I'm doing writing this anymore. I am trash. Utter, stinking trash. I need to go back to Jerza or something.**

* * *

 **cul-de-sac**

 _He has a four hundred year plan of his own._

* * *

He has a four hundred year plan of his own and it starts with killing God Serena.

The power hungry man didn't know it, but his greed did Acnologia a favor by collecting eight dragon hearts and stitching their lacrimas into his body. And when the Black Dragon swooped by, he was able to alleviate the world with eight less dragons in just one fell motion and with less blood to clean off his hands.

There's seven more beasts, but he knows defeating them will take time.

He's not as powerful as she was—she was able to send humans with _dragons_ inside of them ahead four hundred years—and he was only fortunate to catch up to the timeline that she created. Their plan—the plan they forced upon her, the plan she kept from him behind pressed lips and glassy eyes—was over but little did they know that in the stalling of hundreds of years, he has built his own agenda to run.

The math is simple and he's had centuries to dwell on it: He has to rid the present of all the remnants of the past so that he could build a different future—one that she exists in.

Easily, he could bury himself next to her and pretend they are now together forever in the cold hard earth, but he would be lying to himself.

He knows in death he will not join her in heaven. His hands smell like iron and his clothes are stained red and worst of all, he is proud of it. Proud because every dropping body means he is one sin closer to bringing her back to him.

And he is certain that he can do it.

He just has to try hard enough, kill enough, destroy enough before they defeat him altogether.

He can't rewrite history, but at least he can rewrite the future.

After all, if gates could be opened, they surely could be closed.

* * *

 **thir13enth**


	5. evolution

**notes:** I swear this series will end soon. I swear. The fact that the newer chapters haven't gone back to him though...don't help this empty wasteland of never-ending supply of ideas.

This drabble is in which I tweak some canon details and explore a headcanon. Forgive me, it is fanfiction after all.

* * *

 **evolution**

 _He becomes what he hates the most to save her._

* * *

He's not prepared to see her dead, and honestly, he doesn't expect it.

After all, he thought he'd already done everything that he could to protect her.

He only volunteered to fight in the war because they threatened to hurt her if he didn't join their Civil War. He wakes well before the crack of dawn to sneak silently away far from home, carries a sword heavier than the weight of all his past sins, and braces himself to use flimsy metal weapons against the breathing fire of the dragons.

He only allowed them to cut open his chest and insert a dragon lacrima into him because they threatened to take her away if he didn't battle hard enough. He strips to his scarred bare back and bones, lies on the surgery table biting down hard on a dirty spit-soaked rag, muffles his agony into the cloth while they grant him the power to defeat dragons with their own etherious power.

He only gave into all their irrational demands because he loved her just as irrationally. He suffers from the dragon blood slowly taking root into his body, ignores the growing cyan marking on his skin, and turns off the light at night before embracing her so that she can't see.

He became what he hated the most.

A soldier. A dragon. A slave to their will.

He doesn't care. Love is powerful.

He does this all to protect her from _them_ —those wretched "higher" humans that only called dragons the enemies because their noble son was carried off and eaten; and of course, it's a war they won't fight but instead pass down to his lower and undeserving caste.

Yet still, he comes home after a long day—only the strongest can survive—he opens the door and sees her lifeless body on the floor.

His heart stops. His hand drops. His mind numbs.

He crumples to the ground and there is nothing but agony and questions: Why could he not have done anything to stop it? Why has everything that he's done thus far amounted to nothing but her death? What happened? What did he do wrong? Had he not sacrificed himself enough?

Empty promises. Unbridled guilt. Self-entombing blame.

He finds the answer to all his questions—

 _They_ killed her, so he promises on his bloodthirsty lips that he will kill every last one of them.

But when he finally does—throws their beheaded heads, amputated limbs, dethroned hearts to the blood-soaked ground—he finds this was not the solution. This would not bring her back.

He concludes there must be more at fault, and so he bares his teeth to the sky and resolves to kill the dragons—the ones that caused this _all_ to happen.

He knows at the end that this is still not the solution. This would still not bring her back.

He doesn't care. Love is powerful. But the loss of love is unimaginable.

He evolves into hatred uncontained, rage on fire, vengeance insatiable. His hair grows unruly, his skin grows scales, his teeth grows sharp, his blood grows cold, and his heart grows bitter.

He becomes what he hates the most.

Himself.

* * *

 **end notes:** Okay admittedly, I don't know what just happened. I think I was going for some combination of vengeance and regret. Don't know if I got there.

 **thir13enth**


	6. jaded

**notes:** For **ftfanfics** _speechless_ challenge: **transfix**.

Anyway, not sure where I was going with this drabble *sweats* (I just threw words together) but to this end, I think this is a sign that I've written my Annalogia idea reserve dry! Much raw. Very experiment. But I know it's angst. Thank **papalogia** for the title! ;)

Originally written on Valen-angst Day.

* * *

 **jaded**

 _He was blinded by love until she opened his eyes._

* * *

When he meets her under the tree where they had first met three months ago, he welcomes her into his strong broad arms and envelopes her in a long infinite embrace.

They had fallen  
fast  
hard  
deep  
in love — and his naïve self didn't know any better.

No one had ever loved him before, and even though she greeted him with cold eyes, her eyes felt so much warmer than the icy stares the rest of the human population had given him all his life.

He played along with her games, unsure what he would win at the end.

And he ends up loving her so much that he  
confuses the bloodlust in her eyes for genuine compassion  
misses the edge of her steely onyx eyes for coal warm embers  
mistakes her laughter pointed at him for giggles made with him.

So when he meets her under the tree where they had first met three months ago, he welcomes her into his strong broad arms and envelopes her in a long infinite embrace.

She accepts it and then  
she pulls — rather, pries — herself out of his arms.  
she gazes — rather, glares — into his eyes.  
she smiles — rather, smirks — up at him.

And all he can see is adoration, and not her tongue curling at the bittersweet taste of victory for mankind close to come — four hundred years to be exact.

He kisses her and she kisses him back. She waggles her eyebrows, teases him with her hands behind her back. He thinks it's a surprise but little does he know the gift she holds behind her back is death in the form of a golden key that will lock away his future. So little does he know that she plans to let him live an accursed number of centuries dragging his dead soul just waiting to be killed.

He only discovers the plan when he steps onto the bloody battlefield the day after. He finds her standing on the opposite side carrying that same  
look  
smile  
face  
that he grew to love. He realizes that that same look, smile, face is about to  
kill  
destroy  
end  
him, as well as all the trust he had for mankind and the innocence that once marked him as good.

And he can do nothing to stop his hard, fast, deep fall.

He can only stare back with wide, open eyes.

* * *

 **notes** : Told you I was getting bourgeoisie about the writing style. Lol, why the hell did I let myself write that. Never again.

 **thir13enth**


	7. kisses over words

**notes:** back at it with the annalogia, I guess. just another few hurrahs for the remaining requests that I got for it over the last few months.

 **for:** **howlingwolvesonfire** thank you for this request! This is a short drabble but I hope you find it to your liking!

* * *

 **kisses over words**  
 _After all, the kiss never lies._

* * *

They only kiss in the dark.

Under the cover of the night and only lit by the stars, he regrets that the only thing he can see of her are the glints of her eyes and the shadows of her face because he wishes he can see much more of her. Touching her warm skin close to his chest, smelling her sweet fragrance, hearing her musical voice gives him plenty to adore in the small moments they share but he can't help but wonder how it would feel to saturate all of his senses with just Anna.

Heaven, probably. And just like afterworld, he would probably never experience it in his lifetime.

He's gotten used to this though—being cursed to an incomplete love, broken in every way he could imagine. He puts together the bits and pieces of her that he can gather through the day and attempts to fit them all into the same puzzle as best as he can so that he can experience her as whole as he can in his memories. So when the sun is up and he can see, he watches her smile, he watches her pull back her hair and tie it up into a golden rope, he watches her caring touch heal the many wounded soldiers—all through a frosted window, all while disguised in a heavy thick cloak—because in the day time, he wouldn't dare touch her, wouldn't dare get so close that he could _hear_ her.

Their love was simply forbidden. It's only too bad that they had been lovers before they became enemies because now they are disloyal to their people as much as they are disloyal to each other—they keep secrets from everyone and they keep secrets from each other and worst of all, every time she opens her mouth he doesn't know she's saying a lie or a truth and it hurts when she tells him she loves him in the same sentence.

He could get upset about it. He could unfurl his wings and destroy the world about it.

But for now—while she is here and tangled in his limbs, kissing him in the dark, under the cover of the night and only lit by the stars—he remains content with the bits and pieces that he has.

"Are you sure it's meant to be this way?" he suddenly muses, twisting his fingers around in the ends of her hair.

"It can't be any other way," she replies.

It's the same answer that she's given him every single time he's asked. And he still hasn't figured out if it's a truth or a lie. And he still doesn't really care either way.

She doesn't tell him another word after that. She only kisses him until the first rays of daybreak.

And he doesn't want to hear it from her either—that this is the most it will ever get to be, that this is probably all a mistake in the first place, that this was never meant to happen, and that this will be this same way no matter how much she aligns the stars and no matter how much he kill in cold blood.

The words—said, unsaid, truth, lies—quickly fade away. Only the memories of kisses remain.

* * *

 **thir13enth**


	8. free

**notes:** for a request for more annalogia on tumblr. the last one i have on hold! ah, i can put this ship to rest (for now).

* * *

 **free**

* * *

He doesn't like being locked up in a cell. He never has and never will.

And even if he doesn't know what it feels like to be beyond the bars, he knows that whatever that unknown is it is at least one hundred fold better than sitting up against a crumbling brick wall, cold concrete floor on which he's scratched his fingernails bloody trying to keep track of the minutes, hours, days that go by with nothing except when _they_ open the lock to his cage.

He doesn't look forward to what happens then.

They poke and prod and pull at his skin and his scales. They stick and shove and stab him with chemicals that he cannot pronounce and with magic that he cannot fathom. They watch and record, stare and grin at his suffering and all he can do is bare his teeth, growl against the silencer, writhe and flail and thrash in pain pain _pain_.

One day he hears the click of the lock and he decides that _this is the day_ that he is going to act and he hurls his entire self at his captor and he bites down hard at her until she _bleeds_ —

It's sweet. Her blood is sweet and it calms him. It surprises him and it surprises him even more when she just smiles at him—despite the pained look in her eyes. She talks to him and tells him it's okay and talks to him and gives him a snack from her pocket and _talks_ to him. Her blood is sweet like her soft soothing words. Her blood is sweet like her generous kindness. Her blood is sweet like her honey golden hair.

He doesn't expect any of it. He doesn't expect the taste of her blood or the sweet of her nature.

He doesn't rebel after that. Day after day now, he just looks up to see if she will come back.

She never does.

And day after day, he finds a little something called hope in his despaired heart—a little hope that maybe the world isn't just all about poking, prodding, pulling, sticking, shoving, stabbing him.

Day after day passes and he doesn't learn that he's the failed experiment—the one that they're going to "put asleep"—until he wakes up one morning and finds himself 400 years older—and alone.

The air he breathes is different. The dirt under his fingernails is different. The world is different. The people are different. Everything is nothing that he knows and everyone is no one that he is familiar with.

But he still remembers the taste of her blood. He can smell it from hundreds of years away.

And when he unfurls his wings—free—he can think of nothing but to look for her.

* * *

 **thir13enth**


End file.
